« . . . I hear within me a source of living water which says, ‘Come to the Father’.»

I love these words written by Saint Ignatius of Antioch in the early second century. He was a bishop and it was a time when Christians were being killed because of their faith in Jesus. (The same thing is happening in the Middle East and in other places in the world today.) Ignatius wrote seven different letters to various churches as he was being taken to Rome where he would be executed.

We heard these words this morning at Vigils, our first community prayer time. Each day, we hear a reading from a Christian writer in addition to a reading from Scripture. Often it is from an author who lived in the first Christian centuries.

I believe that Ignatius had taken Jesus’s word to heart: «Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water» (Joh 7,37). The evangelist John explained what Jesus meant: «He said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive» (Joh 7,38).

We have received this Spirit in our baptism, and this Spirit, which is God’s Holy Spirit, speaks in our hearts. He leads us to the Father.

Can you hear his voice? The voice of living water? If not, what can you do so that you will be able to hear?